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Restoring Deleted Files

UNIX files are backed up to tape daily and can be restored from tape to disk if necessary. This is a time consuming process which may take up to 24 hours. You can request that it be restored by sending mail to `sysgroup'. The backup system is not designed to be a guarantee of protection, but to give a good chance of recovering from a disaster. A best effort attempt will be made to restore the file.

Make sure that you don't have another file saved with the same name as the file being restored. If you do, the restored file will overwrite it.

If the file that you deleted was on-line for at least 24 contiguous hours sometime during the previous week, your chances for restoration are pretty good. If the file was on-line for less than 24 contiguous hours, or was deleted more than one week before you request restoration, the chances that it can be restored drops considerably. We only keep daily tapes for a week and weekly tapes for a month. This means that a file that existed for a day between two old weekly tapes will not be saved on tape.

If you have data on a different tape that originated from a different place, you can have the files on the tape restored to your home directory on any machine in the CS Department. You should send mail to `sysgroup' and drop off your tape in PCAT 144. The tape must be a magnetic tape (800, 1600, or 6250), Sun cartridge, HP cartridge, or Exabyte tape. The files must be in one of the following formats: tar, ansi-labelled, dd, cpio, or dump. Describe in your mail message to backup what the format of the tape is and where you want the data stored.

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